While many types of sports betting strategies exist, “line shopping” is favored by a small subset of professional bettors known as “grinders.” Both classifications are quite literal, as line shopping involves carefully monitoring different sportsbooks to find the best lines; it therefore requires a grinding work ethic in order to be executed properly.
The good news is that line shopping is a strategy that even novice sports bettors can employ with success. The reason for that is sportsbooks — specifically those that cater to public bettors — will often inflate prices on favorites and overs, particularly for high-profile primetime games, in anticipation of heavy public action. This practice is known as “line shading.”
Because the public bets teams — in contrast to pros, who strictly bet numbers — bookmakers know that, for example, the Patriots on Monday Night Football will attract a ton of public action. So if the true line should have the Patriots favored by 6 points with a corresponding moneyline of -250, square books will “shade” those numbers to 6.5 points and -275, respectively.
While an adjustment like that may be cause for a sharp bettor — recognizing the presence of essentially a free half-point thanks to the shaded line — to take a position on the underdog at +6.5, bookmakers know that the majority of the public is going to bet the Patriots regardless of the number. And in that scenario, the public money on the shaded favorite will far outweigh the sharp money on the discounted dog, thereby increasing the sportsbooks’ expected margins for the game.
Line shopping as a betting strategy
In order for line shopping to be successful as a strategy, bettors need to know which sportsbooks cater to sharp bettors and which cater to public bettors, because it’s among disparate books where the clearest differences in numbers can be found.
For example, Bovada and Sportsbook.ag rank among the noted square offshore books, while Pinnacle and BetCRIS are regarded as sharp books. A savvy line shopper would therefore look to bet underdogs at Bovada and Sportsbook (to take advantage of their line shading) and lay favorites at Pinnacle and BetCRIS, where the favorites will be offered at a fair-market price.